Aminoglycosides are clinically used drugs that cause dose-dependent sensorineural hearing loss (Smith et al., New Engl J Med, (1977) 296:349-53) and are known to kill hair cells in the mammalian inner ear (Theopold, Acta Otolaryngol (1977) 84:57-64). In the U.S. over 2,000,000 people receive treatment with aminoglycosides per year. The clinical efficacy of these antibiotics in treating drug-resistant bacterial infections and their low cost account for their continued worldwide use despite their known ototoxicity liability. The incidence of vestibulotoxic effects of such drugs on patient populations has been less well studied. Estimates range between 3% and 6% with continued reports in the literature of patients with aminoglycoside induced vestibulotoxicity (Dhanireddy et al., Arch Otolarngol Head Neck Surg (2005) 131:46-48). Other clinically important and commonly used drugs also have documented ototoxic effects, including cisplatin (Allen, et al, Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg (1998) 118:584-588), loop diuretics (Greenberg, Am J Med Sci, (2000) 319:10-24), antimalarial sesquiterpene lactone endoperoxides (i.e., artemesinins) (Toovey and Jamieson, Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg (2004) 98:261-7), antimalarial quinines (Claessen, et al., Trop Med Int Health, (1998) 3:482-9), salicylates (Matz, Ann Otol Rhinol Laryngol Suppl (1990) 148:39-41), and interferon polypeptides (Formann, et al., Am J Gastroenterol (2004) 99:873-77).